Ask the Devs #7 – Professions - Answers
Originally Posted by Slorkuz (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Welcome to the answers thread for our World of Warcraft "Ask the Devs" global Q&A. These answers are in response to the round #7 questions, which can be seen here: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2037905341

If you have to ask a question on the Firelands you'd like answered please visit the Ask the Devs #8 Questions thread here: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2098312571

Will you add more non-combat, or purely artistic, or stat-free, or random effect toy / fun / flavor items to the profession of my choice? – A multitude of players from all regions

Yes, especially considering they are some of our favorite things to add to the game. We can't promise that every profession is going to get equal amounts, but we definitely intend to spread them out more evenly, except for engineering. Engineers will always get more toys.


Archaeology is supposed to be about discovering, preserving, and honoring cultural items found, in order to learn from the past. Currently we don't do that. Instead we are forced to coldly vendor what we don't want. No donation to a museum, no return to the races of origin. Couldn’t we do something more important with these items? Can we expect more interesting stories with artifacts? Will you do something about this to make it feel like the player is getting something useful back, and perhaps remove a little bit of the random part of it so that it's more fun and focused? - Whitewnd (KR), Pusen (EU-EN), Unjoiner (NA/ANZ)

Originally, we didn't intend to create items at all when you completed a normal archaeology find, but that didn't feel right. So now we have these items that still don't feel right because you can't do anything fun with them. We are working on a more thematic and interesting way to consume the artifacts you dig up. These include returning them to the museums (for the devoted archaeologist) and the option to continue vendoring them (if you wish to continue your career as a cold-blooded treasure hunter.)

Additionally, we plan to add daily quests, a deeper story, additional skill gains, and the flexibility to focus on a specific race.

Some players may not have noticed that all artifacts have lore associated with them in the journal, even the grey ones. Every bit of it is Genuine Lore, and verified by our lore masters. So were the Dalaran Coins, of course, but not those silly Romance Novels.


Will professions at some point regain the ability to make upgradable items, such as the Weaponsmiths had in the Burning Crusade? It was quite a cool concept, and wouldn't be unfair if all crafting professions would gain at least 1 of those items. - Hydramith (EU-EN), Auryon (EU-DE)

The concept of upgrading a piece of equipment is a very cool idea that we'd love to revisit, but not as a best in slot item. A crafted BIS item removes that entire slot as an interesting drop choice, and it strongly forces players into specific professions. For example, if there is a crafted best in slot weapon, you can bet a vast majority of players will feel obligated to take up blacksmithing, as was the case in the Burning Crusade. The profession perks, which are reasonably balanced, already add an incentive to take professions.


Have you ever considered creating daily quests for professions other than jewelcrafting? - Superpotion (NA/ANZ)

We've mostly considered it for the secondary professions, since they are the most accessible professions to the most players. When we add another large chunk of recipes again, we'll evaluate each profession to see if dailies are a good fit.


Will enchanters ever get the option to create wands again (maybe other caster items as well using a blank template weapon that could be made by blacksmiths), as they tend to be extremely rare outside of the a couple locations and the new ZA/ZG loot tables? - Flayre (NA/ANZ) [/i]

In general, we want to add more fun themed recipes to enchanting like the magic lanterns. Concerning wands, we've been discussing several options, and most everything we could do with them is still on the table.


Will there be a way to distinguish profession nodes on the minimap for those that have two gathering professions? - Discordia (LA)

That’s a good suggestion. We recently added the ability to see your target and focus target on the minimap, but the feedback we’ve received from players is that they clutter up the map too much. Coming up with unique icons that work with only a few pixels might be challenging. We’ll give it a shot though.


Will you provide a way to speed up the acquiring of glyphs usually acquired through research and glyph books? Glyph books (Book of Glyph Mastery) are hard to come by now that people spend so little time in WotLK content. - Furlqt (NA/ANZ), 에르네**린덴만 (KR), Kånê (EU-ES)

Yes. We will be changing the discovery spells so they can teach all possible glyphs, and the books will simply provide a no-cooldown method to do the same thing.


Are there any plans to make Archaeology more closely connected with other professions? Like make inscriptors able to create scripts of the night elves that would help with the fragments or something like that? - Алонжи (EU-RU)

We feel like we can better tune and balance the archaeology experience if we keep it mostly self-contained. However, we've discussed additional methods for gaining fragments through dailies and potentially as rewards for turning artifacts. Nonetheless, it's quite unlikely that another profession will ever craft keystones or fragments.


Are there any plans to make Chaos Orbs BoA or even BoE? - Mommycow (NA/ANZ)

Yes! They will be unbound in a future patch.


Do you have plans to make gathering professions more attractive instead of making them skills that you would be inclined to take up on one of your alts? - Nanahuatzin (LA)

Yes, this is an ongoing goal. Specialized nodes and raid/dungeon drops for gatherers are a good start. Because gathering professions essentially pull currencies from the ground, we feel they are a valid choice for many players, especially those who want to be self-sufficient.


Are there any plans to change Original and Burning Crusade profession skills so that new players can skill up their profession skills more similar pace with leveling? Low level trade skill materials on Auction House are generally expensive for new players, and new players must feel they are stuck if they should left low level zones just for profession skill up, while they want to increase both of them at same pace. - Whitewnd (KR), Гаркара (EU-RU)

Yes. Definitely. As we move forward, making sure older content has a smooth flow is a top priority. In fact, we have Top Men working on it. Top. Men.


Are there any plans to somehow change Archeology and Fishing, which have become notoriously tedious? Do you have plans to make archaeology more appealing, maybe with puzzles or something else? - Boîndal (EU-DE), Kalani (NA/ANZ), Käworu (LA)

Yes. The dailies help with fishing skill gain, and we plan to add archaeology dailies as well. We've also discussed further incentivizing fishing in pools with faster skill gain.

We would love to add a puzzle mini-game to archaeology, and may do that one day, but we can’t make any guarantees. There are some other ideas floating around for moving between archaeology sites more quickly, and we've been brainstorming for rare random events when you are digging or fishing.

Our overall goal for these professions is that it shouldn't be too difficult to max out your skill, but catching every fish and finding every artifact should be a long journey.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Ask the Devs #7 – Professions - Answers started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 76 Comments
  1. McNeil's Avatar
    I'm glad they will try to make Archy fun again, now its VERY boring and atm I'm at 390 skill. Today I started leveling Archy in Outland, and digging in Auchindeon (or whatever its spelled) is a pain
  1. ComputerNerd's Avatar
    When Frozen Orbs became readily available they dropped down to as low as their vendor price, so removing the BoP status of Chaos Orbs will simply do the same thing and kill any value they currently have.
    They may be considered useless now, but thats your own fault for rolling on something you know you are not going to use.
    When everyone can get them without running any dungeons they will become even less valuable and with it being likely in a later tier they will be less desirable as far as the crafted results go and therefore more useless than they are now.
  1. Endothermal's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shambulanced View Post
    I don't know why, after the first 6, I still read these and expect any of the questions to be interesting (the mark of a fool is returning to the same thing several times, expecting different results). Unique node icons for gathering? Use Gatherer. Really.
    Welcome to the answers thread for our World of Warcraft and a Full Curse Client of Add-Ons "Ask the Devs" global Q&A.
    This may shock you, but not everybody uses add-ons. The fact that your "solution" is for someone to find a way to edit the game to make it work means that there is an issue. Blizzard just wants to do it officially rather than suggesting third-party sources. I'm sure your answer a year ago was "Can't find where these mobs spawn? Use Quest Helper. Really."
  1. mmocbd067ab907's Avatar
    Really do hope they implement the mini map icon change as that'll cause a lot less confusion all the time. Also glad to hear they;re considering helping out the lower level crafting too. Might make me take them up on alts again.
  1. Nerraw's Avatar
    Archaeology definitely needs some love and I'm glad to hear they're aware of that and working on cool things.

    Also: Top. Men.
  1. DrakeWurrum's Avatar
    Pretty much as I expected - they completely ignored everything related to Leatherworking.
  1. Vladimeir's Avatar
    In fact, we have Top Men working on it. Top. Men.
    Meaning : Never to be seen again until some neo-twilight's hammer breaks in to a top secret SI:7 operated facility for something completely unrelated and accidently breaks it open.
  1. Weenietot's Avatar
    It'd be nice to have upgradeable gear for each profession again. They talk about BiS but really, I don't think anyone was looking for that. It'd just be nice to have something in each tier that would be a viable replacement for a normal mode item. I.e. when Firelands comes out, upgrade Dreamless Belt (359) on Tailoring to Flaming Dreamless Belt (378). It doesn't need to be BiS but options are nice to have.
  1. wiIdi's Avatar
    Archaeology
    the problem with archeology is this: Archaeology is endless grind and 99% of the rewards are craptastic and completely useless. That's why it isn't fun. In case you want to improve this profession, you have to realize the fact that
    - story as reward doesn't work and
    - cosmetical or fun items as reward don't work either
  1. garion55's Avatar
    i think that they have to be as vague and non specific as possible. anytime they say 'we are thinking about doing x', that becomes a promise and after an amount of time people start getting pissed that the promise has not been kept. there also might be some legal issues about what they can disclose and what they cant.
  1. Tareku's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Horndogz View Post
    Question: Will these "Ask the Dev's" posts ever stop being damn near close to useless?
    "We feel that the quality of the answers might get better by adding some substance to them, there are several choices on the table, and we are working on an efficient solution for it at the moment"
    just guessing...
    and Arch just sucks, I lvl it on an alt up to 75 or so... so damn boring, more boring than fishing imo, YES fishing!
  1. mmoc9e94235ac9's Avatar
    In fact, we have Top Men working on it. Top. Men.
    Peter Griffin right ther.. Funny, I tend to quote it lol.
  1. Endothermal's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shambulanced View Post
    My complaint was more that they chose to answer a question that relates to a very well known and very popular addon already in the game, rather than talking about new, unique features they might be developing. But thanks for taking me out of context and giving me a chance to elaborate! Totally tangental.
    Sorry; I'll admit it was a knee-jerk reaction by me, but I'm frustrated by the mentality that the game doesn't need to be changed as long as there's an add-on out there that does it for you.

    I do agree with you that it's frustrating to get back these vague answers. I think Blizzard (perhaps rightly) assumes that everything they do say in these Q&As will be held against them as evidence if they decide to change plans or scrap features, but that says more about a cowardice on their part to commit and a fear that their player-base will somehow "revolt" if demands aren't met. I'd rather they say "We've thought the problem through more thoroughly and have decided not to after all" later than "We're considering implementing something along these lines in the future" now.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fixup View Post
    Peter Griffin right ther..funny as I use it lol
    To everyone who believes that "We've got top men working on it" is a line from Family Guy, I'd like you to immediately tab to your Netflix queue and rent an obscure early-eighties movie that you might not have heard of called "Raiders of the Lost Ark".
  1. Bauwagast's Avatar
    /yawn I expected more from these Q/A's... foolish me! I hoped they'd answer if they would improve the shitty Skinning bonus, "Master of Anatomy", that is worthless, but I guess it's not getting any love.
  1. mmoc9e94235ac9's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Endothermal View Post

    To everyone who believes that "We've got top men working on it" is a line from Family Guy, I'd like you to immediately tab to your Netflix queue and rent an obscure early-eighties movie that you might not have heard of called "Raiders of the Lost Ark".
    Ah ha, okay ;-) Thanks for heads up!
  1. VanishO2's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by greyghost View Post
    They'll all be unbound. It's what happened with Nethers in TBC.

    Also: WOOOOO on the Inscription change. That needs to happen right _now_ though. Some glyphs are selling for 500g each for skills that are learnable at level 25. Makes it a nightmare for newer players who have no gold.
    Did Frozen Orbs all became unbound after the change in WotLK? Don't remember.
  1. Gouky's Avatar
    another batch of we might, we could, but don't expect anything soon.

    when professions gona be worth lvling past bonus stats?
  1. Endothermal's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by VanishO2 View Post
    Did Frozen Orbs all became unbound after the change in WotLK? Don't remember.
    Considering there's around twenty of them sitting in my guild bank, I'd say so.
  1. Deployed's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by jobdone View Post
    I like how most of the answers don't really give any information on what they are doing.
    And they almost never will. It has been explained over and over and over again, they will not intentionally announce things unless they know for certain that they will be in the position to fully follow through, and by that time it's almost ready for the PTR.

    We all know the examples of things that they began work on, but then got shelved/cancelled/reworked. Instead of being "nice pieces of information that excite us" they become "broken promises! Where's my moose!?"

    Stop holding your breath for these things to be meaningful. If there's ever an interesting answer for you, it'll be with a question here and there. Without a doubt, we will never see a FULL AtD with worthwhile questions, let alone answers.
  1. Valeron's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by dpm5075 View Post
    Epic Indy reference right there.
    So does this mean that it will never see the light of day? After all, the Ark was put into forgotten storage.

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